James Yeh

Grounds for Ascension

SITE : TAIPEI, TAIWAN  (Urban renewal, mixed-used, landscape reclamation) 

 
This thesis engages Taipei’s layered historical memory while projecting a vision for its near-future urbanism. It operates both as a critique of past spatial control and as a design proposal for a liberated civic space—one that bridges political history, public accessibility, and landscape integration. 

The thesis proposes the urban renewal of the hillside site directly across from Jiantan metro station, land once constrained by height restrictions during Taiwan’s dictatorial era. With those constraints now lifted, the site is reimagined as an open, elevated urban platform that reconnects the city to its hillside landscape. 

 
The dictatorial era’s constraints on land use in Taipei are now part of the past. With political restrictions lifted, the project aims to revitalize the neglected hillside , signaling the potential for urban renewal. This previously restricted site should now be considered as ready for transformation. The proposal imagines a future Taipei where post-restriction sites are catalysts for architectural experimentation, urban porosity, and collective public life, confronting the city’s complex past while shaping its evolving identity. 

 
The project aspire to reimagine the formerly politically restricted land as an open, elevated urban platform. To introduce multi public circulation that bridges the city with the hillside. Creating mixed-use housings, cultural galleries, and commercial programs within a layered urban fabric of a post-colonial model for urban renewal. In doing so, the project proposes a model for post-colonial urban renewal: an architecture that reflects on historical memory while actively shaping a more inclusive and integrated urban future.